


The Dreams are Always Different

by LayALioness



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: I put Cabeswater as a character bc lets be real, also this is hella abstract if ur into that, but then like resurrection ??, if ur not, sorry i guess, uh vague death(s) ???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 23:10:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4118122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It happens like this: the boy always dies.</p><p>There is always a funeral. One of them always dies. It is always significant, it is always preventable, and it is always sad. A heart always breaks. The ones left behind always cry. There is always a funeral.</p><p>The boy always wakes up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dreams are Always Different

It happens like this: the boy finds the king, the girl kisses the boy, the king grants three wishes, the dream swallows reality, the boy dies.

But really it happens like this: the boy falls in love, the boy kisses the girl back. She cries at the funeral.

They happen continuously, less like a wheel and more like a story told and retold but in different ways, and different orders, like the narrator can’t always remember. Or maybe they just like to mix things up.

This is a story, a dream—they tell themselves this, to ease their minds. They’re not quite sure if it’s true. Stories don’t always have the same endings. Sometimes they can be changed, rewritten. Sometimes dreams can be influenced. Sometimes they can wake up before the knife falls.

And sometimes the blood pours through their hands, down their stomachs, stains their skin and clothes and mouths. And then they wake up in the morning, still covered in red and smelling like copper, but the bruises and knife wounds are gone. They never ask why. They never look for answers to those sorts of questions—they stick to the safe ones, like ancient kings and trees that speak Latin.

The king is a dream, and he is also reality. That happens a lot to them, these days. They live in between, in all the gray areas; they hopscotch between all the lines that should never be crossed. The king grants three wishes, but they only ask for two. They know there are rules for this sort of thing, there have to be, but no one says them and so they don’t ask. The king certainly doesn’t explain things. He is not a genie, he is not in a lamp. He is in a coffin, in the earth, and he is an old man slow to blink the sleep from his eyes. He is tired and he is old and he is silent, but. He grants three wishes. They keep the third just in case.

The boy dies, the curse is lifted, the boy comes back. The mother comes back too, but she shows up before the king, before the kiss, before the funeral. She walks in through the front door, shoes missing and feet bruised. She is dehydrated and sunburned and altogether annoyed by the whole thing, but she is otherwise intact.

One boy is the key, one the door, one the lock, and one the hinges. Sometimes the roles are reversed, sometimes a boy is both the key and the lock, and sometimes a boy is nothing but a boy. Sometimes all of them are boys, and they meet before death and dreams and kings complicate everything, and they still eat pizza together and live in an old empty factory, but no one dies and no one is cursed and there are no wishes to be granted.

Sometimes the girl is a key or a lock or a door, but mostly she is just the girl, and that’s enough.

Sometimes she kisses the boy with gasoline in his veins, and sometimes she kisses the one made of fire. Sometimes she sees those boys together, and she waits for them to ignite. She always kisses the dead one, and it is always bittersweet. Sometimes she kisses the boy that she wants to kiss, but usually she can stop herself in time.

But sometimes she doesn’t. She kisses the boy, and he kisses her back, and there are ten thousand nerve endings in her lips and he strikes them all with lightning and _fuck, fuck, she’s in love with him_.

She kisses the boy, and he kisses her back, and he cries, and she goes to his funeral.

There is always a funeral. One of them always dies. It is always significant, it is always preventable, and it is always sad. A heart always breaks. The ones left behind always cry. There is always a funeral.

There is always this: they leave the wake early, they dig up the grave, they wrap the body in sheets, they drive to the forest, the king keeps his promise.

The boy always wakes up.

It is the dreams that are different.


End file.
